The Golden Era
For me the golden era was the 1960's and 1970's Even though the two airline policy existed both TAA, EWA, Ansett and Air New South Wales worked together to provide the best customer service. Ansett, TAA and Qantas had their own catering sections, ground staff, engineers etc. TAA and Ansett had a spare parts pool(having pretty much identical aircraft due to the Two Airline policy. Where the domestic staff seemed to work together and also socialised together outside work hours, to me, there appeared to be a different culture in QF as it was purely longhaul. There certainly were some characters in the domestic carriers and compared to today we were often politically incorrect but it was all in good fun.
Even thought the Viscount presented challenges to both pilots and the engineering staff. As a passenger it was delight to fly in even though I was young. But as Rudy Camillo once told me 'its was a terrible way to put perfect four rolls royce darts into the air.'
If a TAA aircraft went u/s then Ansett staff would try and accomodate passengers on the next available flight and vice versa. Same with mishandled baggage.
Learnt so much from the crew operating prior the the 1989 pilots dispute. Such a waste of talent and hand flying skills that had been passed on from the old timers who had gone onto RPT ops after WW11 and leant from their experiences.
For me it was a time when all staff took pride in their expertise.